Eat Ethically Fairtrade keeps coffee growers full of beans

Date Published:

23/02/2009

Amen Mtui, a coffee liquorer from the Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union, tells Charlie Cottrell how the extra pence you pay for Fairtrade coffee is used to secure futures for farmers in Tanzania

What does a coffee liquorer do?

I control the quality of coffee that comes from the farmer and goes to consumer. I taste the coffee before it is brought to the warehouse, before it goes to the auction and before we export to coffee to make sure the quality I receive from the farmer is the same as it will be when it reaches the consumer.

What did you do before?

I started working at KNCU as a statistician. In 1993 I joined the export department and from there I went on a liquoring course for three years. In 1999, Cafédirect sponsored me to come to the UK and learn what they need from their coffee quality.

Do you work closely with coffee growers?

We work very closely with them because we are the ones who collect their coffee before they sell it. We are the middle man; we help them sell their coffee and find a market for their beans. KNCU has 60,000 member farmers and represented by 62 regional groups called Primary Societies.

How important is coffee growing to your community? In Tanzania?

Coffee is the only crop that gives an income to the farmers. They have no other cash crop in that area. There are smallholder farmers who own their own farm and also people who work on estates for plantation owners. If I want to retire I will have to go back to be a coffee farmer. My father is getting old so I need to go and take care of that farm.

Do many farmers work with companies that offer a fair price for beans, like Cafédirect?

I would say about 80 per cent of farmers are self-employed coffee farmers working with the KNCU co-operative.

How much more money does a Fairtrade farmer earn compared to a non Fairtrade farmer?

A farmer who works on his own farm gets more money than a labourer on an estate because labourers are being paid only for the day. If there is bad harvest or a bad year you might not get any work. If you have your own farm, you can also grow your own food.

With Fairtrade, farmers are guaranteed a minimum price that will always cover the cost of production. In addition they are paid a Social Premium that benefits the community. If you sell to a private buyer you only get one payment each year but farmers selling to Cafédirect get another payment at the end of the season when Cafédirect sells the coffee to the supermarket.

What impact does working with a company like Cafédirect have for coffee farmers?

Having extra money means you can save and you can do many more things with the money. You can build a house, send your children to schools or borrow money from the cooperative. You can make plans.

What does that mean in terms of day to day living?

Farmers use the coffee money to take their children to school; some societies use the money to build, for example, a dispensary because the hospital is sometimes far from their community. Growers hold an Annual General Meeting to decide what to use the money for. Every coffee farmer contributes a proportion to these projects.

Apart from a better price for beans what other advantages does working with companies like Cafedirect offer?

For the past six years KNCU has run the Farmers' Technical Services through investment from Cafédirect's Producer Partnership Project. It is a new department that gives training to farmers, showing them how to renovate land and take better care of their farm through irrigation, using pesticides, pruning, picking on time. The skill of the farmer determines how much coffee they can grow.

In Tanzania, farms are passed on through generations and there are more people living and farming on the same amount of land. This will be a problem in the future because families are building houses on the areas for coffee growing. Cafédirect and KNCU are trying to diversify into other sources of income - we have project called Kahawa Shamba where we have created an ecolodge for tourism.

Tell me about what conditions are like farmers who are not working with a Fairtrade company?

Farmers with Fairtrade know they have money coming at the end of the season. Farmers who are not members of KNCU cannot sell their coffee to a Fairtrade company. They only get paid once a year and get no premiums. In the old days school and hospital was free but since 1985 you have to pay for everything. If you don't have enough money and you get ill you end up dying because where will you get the money?

What is life like for people who work on plantations?

Plantations are owned by settlers. The farmer employs people to work on the farm. We don't know what they pay the labourers but they don't pay anything to the community. They are working only as a business. The plantation owner makes a lot of money from the coffee he sells but it doesn't get reinvested into the community.

The economic situation in the UK means people are worried about spending money. What would you say to people who are turning away from Fairtrade coffee to save money?

I would say keep on buying Fairtrade because, if you stop buying, the farmers have no option to produce quality coffee. The quality will go down because the prices go down and they will think, "Why should I bother working so hard when I get nothing?"

If people stop buying Fairtrade coffee - what will happen to people who grow and work with coffee?

They will get a low price for their coffee and they will start to worry how they will find money for food, for medical treatment, for buying clothes and for schools.

Find out where your money goes in Fairtrade - What are you paying for?

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